[M/M] Broken by grief after my partner's funeral, a stranger on the train offered me a distraction. I had no idea what kind of house I was walking into. [Part 1 - Death Becomes Us]
Death Becomes Us...
I
It was pushing midnight, and the train car was completely empty except for me. I checked the time again. Twenty minutes left until we rolled through my town. But for the first time in a long while, I wasn't eager to get home. No one was waiting for me there anymore.
I rested my head against the seatback and closed my eyes, fighting the urge to dwell on what had happened. Still, the images of the impact kept burning into my retinas on a relentless loop. I didn't want to keep reliving it. It was too agonizing.
A sudden noise made me open my eyes. The sliding door at the end of the car had opened, and the ticket inspector stepped through. He was a guy of about twenty-five whom I’d never seen before, despite taking this exact train every single night.
I flashed him my ticket, and he offered me a smile.
He moved on to the next car, leaving me alone with my grief. But a few minutes later he came back, and to my surprise, he spoke to me.
"The train's empty. Mind if I sit with you?"
He didn't wait for an answer before dropping into the seat across from me. I closed my eyes, trying to ignore just how fucking gorgeous he was.
"I'm really sorry about your guy," he said.
My eyes snapped open.
"How did you...?"
"I saw you on the news. You've got unmistakable eyes."
I didn't know how the hell to respond to that.
"Has the funeral happened yet?"
"This morning," I replied, thrown off balance by his bluntness.
"Don't worry. It'll pass." His sheer audacity was starting to piss me off, but he kept talking, and my anger slowly dissolved. "I've lost three people I loved deeply in the last three years. Once you realize they're still alive as long as you are, everything gets easier. Look at Freddie Mercury. He's more present now than when he was breathing. What's your name?"
"Rafa."
"I'm Julián, but you can call me Lían. It doesn't sound quite as awful."
"Lían?"
"It started as a nickname on IRC. Now everyone calls me that. Do you want to talk about it?"
"Talk about what?"
"About what happened to your guy."
"I don't think so."
"Suit yourself. But I promise you, the sooner you do, the sooner it stops torturing you."
After thinking it over for a moment, I asked:
"Who did you lose?"
"First my mom, then my dad, and six months ago, my girlfriend."
My most selfish self, the part of my brain that was always on high alert looking to score, cursed silently. The gorgeous ticket inspector was straight. Then I felt like absolute shit for thinking that on the exact same day I'd buried my guy.
"What happened to your girlfriend?"
"We had some of that canned mushroom soup. Apparently, it had gone bad. I survived, she didn't."
"What a shitty life."
"Well, I like still being here."
"I mean it's so easy to check out... We should come armor-plated from the factory. Did you sue the soup company?"
"Didn't have to. They paid us a fortune not to sue. Both my in-laws and me. Anyway, our lawyer said it was a lottery, that proving negligence was really tough, that the can could have taken a hit during transport or right there in the supermarket, and if we went to trial, odds were we wouldn't see a dime."
"Then how come they gave you so much money just like that?"
"To save themselves the bad press. And now you're going to ask what I'm doing working, with all that cash sitting in my checking account. Truth is, I get bored. Even though I could easily take a few gap years. Your turn."
"My turn?"
"To talk about your shit. I'm sure whatever they said on the news is total bullshit, like always."
"What did they say on the news?"
"Well, they really hammered home the fact that you're both guys, as you can imagine. And they talked about... well, about how the whole thing might have been triggered by your partner discovering you were cheating on him."
"Seriously? I don't believe it."
"They dropped the hint, pure Tomate style. TV is fucking disgusting. Then they ran a segment on the gay scene, the nightlife, the coke, the booze, the reckless sex, and the pills."
"Jesus Christ, what a disgrace."
"Maybe if you sue them you can get something out of it too. I can advise you."
"All I want is to forget about everything as soon as possible."
"Tell me about it. You'll be taking the first step."
I looked at him, unconvinced, raising an eyebrow to emphasize my skepticism, but in the end, I let myself be dragged into it.
"Fine. But you have to promise me it never leaves here."
"I'll take it to my grave. Well, our partners are the ones in the graves."
"I don't know if I like your sense of humor."
"You made it too fucking easy."
"Let's see. The story starts seven months ago."
"Go ahead."
"Esteban and I were coming back from a night out. I was pretty wasted; Esteban hadn't touched a drop so he could drive. That's important because we can't blame alcohol for what happened that night."
"Uh-huh."
"Esteban was driving pretty fast. We were in a rush to get home because we both had work the next day. Actually, we'd gone out clubbing after a birthday party. We hadn't planned on it. Anyway, who gives a shit. The point is, it was pitch black, and as we were getting close to home, Esteban blew through a crosswalk and we took out a girl."
Lían didn't seem the least bit surprised at this point, which somehow disappointed me. Since he didn't say a word, I kept going.
"We hit her dead on. She went flying right over the car. I still see her face when I close my eyes at night." I waited for Lían to comfort me, but he didn't. "Well. I know it sounds horrific, but we didn't stop. Esteban kept driving, saying he couldn't pull over, that he couldn't face the fact that we'd killed her. So we locked the car in the garage and went to bed. We didn't call the cops, we didn't tell a soul. We just waited. To this day, I still don't know if that girl died that night. We didn't leave the house for a week, didn't read the paper, didn't even go online. We didn't want to know. If the cops showed up at our door, we'd sing, obviously. But the cops never came. Esteban never drove his car again. It's been sitting in the garage since that night."
"So, what happened to Esteban? Did that girl show up with an axe to get her revenge?"
"Esteban killed himself. He hanged himself. But not because I cheated on him, like you said they're hinting at on TV, but because he didn't stop the car that night. It was like killing her twice—first by running her over, and then by leaving her there to die. Esteban became obsessed. He lost his fucking mind. He looked for a thousand and one reasons for what had happened. In his final days, he started blaming me. He said he was actually thinking about me when he decided not to stop. That he loved me so much he wanted to spare me the ordeal."
"It must have been hell living with that."
"It was hell living with him, more like."
"I see the thing with that girl affected you a lot less than it did him."
"I know it sounds cruel, but I wasn't the one behind the wheel."
As I said that, I realized the train had come to a stop, and I stood up.
"I have to go."
"Wait!"
"This is my stop."
"Stay, please."
"Why?"
"Because what you just told me is something you tell a friend, not a stranger. And if you walk away now, we'll stay strangers."
"But it's my stop..."
"There are only three left until the end of the line. My shift is over anyway. I can drive you home. Maybe we'll run over another chick at a crosswalk."
"I shouldn't stay, not after hearing you say shit like that."
"But are you staying?"
"Not like I have a choice," I said, seeing that the doors had already slid shut and the train was moving again. "But you've got a pretty twisted sense of humor, just so you know."
"It's part of my charm."
The truth was, I didn't know what to make of Lían. He scared me a little. I had just shown him my darkest side, talking shit about my freshly buried boyfriend and completely washing my hands of what we'd done to that girl. Esteban had killed himself. That didn't exactly speak highly of me. I hadn't known how to support him. I hadn't shared the blame. I had left the crushing weight of that night squarely on his shoulders, and he hadn't been able to bear it. In a way, Esteban's suicide was my fault. I was sure Lían had picked up on that while listening to my story, and instead of letting me walk away, he was saying he wanted to be my friend.
There was something strange about that (I already know there's something strange about me, but I have to live with myself and love myself, I don't have a choice). There was something enigmatic about Lían, something that terrified me. And turned me on.
He had his car parked next to the station. It was an ancient Ford Ka that looked like it was going to fall to pieces at any second.
"For a newly rich guy, your car is a piece of shit."
"I know. But I'm attached to it. It was my girlfriend's car."
"Touché. I keep fucking up tonight."
"Someday you'll understand that talking about the dead isn't fucking up, and that nothing you do or say in this world is wrong."
"That makes two."
"Two what?"
"I don't like your sense of humor, and I don't like your cheap philosophy."
"Rafa... I know I promised to take you home, but... want to come to my place?"
"Why the hell would I do that?"
"Because you fit."
"I fit? Fit where?"
"I've got a hole in my basement where I keep bodies. There's room for you."
"Are you threatening me?"
"I'm asking you to come fill a hole. It's a beautiful thing."
"Shoving my body into a ditch full of corpses isn't a beautiful thing."
"Are you coming?"
"Alright. I don't have anything better to do. But promise me I'll make it out alive."
"I can't promise you that. People die in the weirdest places. The world is a strange place."
"El Mundo is a newspaper."
"See? I don't like your sense of humor either. Now we have something in common."
During the drive, we kept up the same stupid banter, but I have to admit I was having a pretty good time, which was the last thing I expected today. When we got to his place, he parked the car and looked at me.
"This is going to be our last moment alone tonight," he said.
"How interesting. You don't live with your parents because you told me they were dead. Who else is in your house? Are you keeping your girlfriend's corpse up there?"
"This is going to be our last moment of solitude tonight. Don't fuck it up."
"Okay."
"Before we go up, I want you to know I'm into you."
"You're into me?"
"Physically."
"I thought you were straight."
"I thought so too, until I wasn't."
"Okay."
"I'm into you physically, intellectually too, and it's possible that someday I might even fall in love with you."
"Wow..."
"That's it."
"That's it?"
"I had to tell you before we went up. You know... to have a bit of an edge."
And he got out of the car.
"Hey," I said, getting out after him. "Don't you want to know if I'm into you too?"
"I don't want you saying anything you'll have to regret in a few minutes"—another clear allusion to whatever was waiting for us inside his place.
I decided to take his advice. I didn't say a fucking word and followed him upstairs, thoroughly intrigued.
He took out his keys. From inside the apartment, I could hear a TV, turned up pretty loud. He opened the door. The hallway was pitch black. Lían grabbed my hand and said, "Come."
I let him lead me, obediently, into the living room. I saw a massive, hundred-inch TV and recognized the movie El orfanato (a horror flick).
There were seven guys scattered across two sofas and some floor cushions. Their ages ranged from 20 to 35. But the crazy thing was that they were all incredibly gorgeous, each in his own way. It was like a collection of dream guys. They were too fucking beautiful to coexist in the same room without the planet exploding or, at the very least, the walls cracking.
"Hey," Lían said.
There were seven symmetrical heys from his friends. Someone paused the DVD, and someone else flipped on the light.
"Is that him?" asked one of those dream guys.
"You brought him?" asked another.
Suddenly, I felt like a defenseless puppy cornered in the kitchen after peeing where I wasn't supposed to. They were talking about me. There had been a premeditated plan to bring me to this house. I felt fear, I admit it.
"His name is Rafa. And he meets the requirements," Lían explained.
I started wondering if he was actually serious about filling a hole in the basement with my body.
"Lían... Can we talk in the kitchen for a second?" I suggested.
"He's scared," someone said.
"Take him to the kitchen, Lían. We'll finish watching the movie."
Lían led me into a massive, fully equipped kitchen where, I assumed, there wouldn't be a single can of soup.
"Explain yourself before I run right out that door."
"I live with them."
"I can see that."
"I watched the news with them. We saw you on the news."
"Keep going."
"I told them I knew you. That you take the same train every day."
"I've never seen you."
"You never see anyone. You spend the whole ride staring at your hands and listening to music."
"Maybe."
"So I told them if I saw you on the train, I'd talk to you, see if you fit the profile. Honestly, I didn't think I'd see you tonight. I didn't go to work when I buried my girlfriend."
"I went to keep my mind occupied. What's this about fitting the profile?"
"Well... My roommates and I are part of a club. Hold on, I'll introduce you."
We went back to the living room. Lían snatched the remote from one of the guys and paused the movie again.
"Alright, line up."
The guys obeyed, smiling. Truth is, they looked like a bunch of kids gathered for a sleepover, only older and definitely with a lot more hair on their balls. I wondered if they actually all lived there, like Lían claimed, or if they just got together at his place every now and then.
"Boys, this is Rafa."
"Hiii, Rafaaaa!" they all chorused in pure Alcoholics Anonymous tradition.
"We love you," one of them muttered under his breath, just to top it off.
"Rafa lost Esteban, his boyfriend. Was he your boyfriend or your husband, Rafa?"
"Boyfriend. Just my boyfriend."
"He lost Esteban, his boyfriend. He hanged himself."
"How awful," someone said.
"I'm so sorry," added another.
"He must have done something wrong," a third one chimed in.
Someone elbowed the third guy.
"He still doesn't know if he's joining the club or not. He wants to meet you guys first."
"Makes sense, makes sense."
"Alright. Rafa, this is Just Juan," Lían said, introducing me to the first in line, a gorgeous bear, dark-haired with blue eyes, and a beard that made you want to run your fingers through it.
"Just Juan?" I asked.
"Because there are two Juans"—the second Juan, a muscular, shirtless blond guy, raised his hand and shrugged. "We call him Juan Cubed. Anyway, right now we're on Just Juan. Just Juan lost his partner last year. But let him tell you."
"His name was Tomás and he was an air traffic controller. But he didn't get run over by a plane or anything like that. He had a massive heart attack during a marathon."
"Why are you dancing, Just Juan?" Lían asked, teasing him.
"I'm pissing myself, but I was too creeped out to go to the bathroom. We just watched the scene where the old lady gets run over. Creepy as fuck."
"Go on, go."
Just Juan bolted out of the room.
"This is Néstor. His wife and two kids, who were only two and three years old, died in a car crash about three years ago."
"They were coming back from visiting my mother-in-law. The woman's a pain in the ass, no wonder Lola fell asleep on the drive back."
"Actually, the causes of the accident aren't clear," Lían explained.
"I'm sure she fell asleep. She used to fall asleep standing up," Néstor said.
Lían went on introducing me to the rest. They had all lost at least their partners, and none of them had any problem talking or joking about it.
"And this is Gerardo," Lían said when we reached the last one. Gerardo was pretty weird. Dressed in black up to his neck. He was pale, but that didn't make him any less attractive. He had long, black hair. It reached past his waist. He looked like a vampire straight out of an erotic novel. "His boyfriend died last week. He hasn't wanted to tell us how, but we suspect he killed him himself just to get into our club."
Gerardo smiled enigmatically at the introduction, but didn't say a word.
After the introductions, everyone sat back down to finish the movie, and Lían took me to his bedroom.
"What do you think of them?"
"Honestly? A little crazy. And they're hot as fuck."
"Right?"
"Do you have to be hot to join the club?"
"No, no. That was just a coincidence. Besides, you break the rule."
"Thanks a lot."
"No, no. I mean you break the mold. You're way hotter than them."
"I repeat. Thanks a lot. But it's not true. Hey... There's a majority of gay guys. Is there a specific reason for that?"
Lían took a moment to answer.
"It just happened that way. First I met Néstor, about four months ago. Actually, I already knew him by sight, from a coffee shop we both go to. One day we just started talking and he told me about his wife and kids, and I told him about my girlfriend. We hit it off, and after spending two days together, we ended up in my bed. Up until that point, neither he nor I had been with men, so it was a new and exciting experience for both of us. For a few weeks, we thought we'd become a couple, but then the passion fizzled out and we realized there was no more chemistry. Then the others started joining, spontaneously. It's like we're a magnet for gorgeous widowers. I don't know how we founded the club or why they all end up moving in with me, but I like it. As for the gay majority, honestly, I don't think we can accept very straight guys or women into the club anymore, because this place has turned into a total whorehouse. Everyone hooks up with everyone, and I don't know if that might make a straight guy who isn't into excesses uncomfortable."
"Everyone with everyone?"
"Basically. It goes in phases. Couples or threesomes form and then dissolve. I don't know how it works, I don't participate."
"Seriously?"
"Really."
"And why don't you participate?"
"Because I actually fell in love with Néstor."
The next part is coming in a few days. Follow my profile so you don't miss the rest of the story.